Thursday, July 2, 2015

Japan Day 7: Laundry & Arashiyama

So proud of ourselves for getting ready.

This was a Sunday and John was so proud of himself for finding an English ward in Kyoto to attend. Unfortunately we had too much faith in Google maps and with jumping from bus, to train, to subway we found ourselves 30 min. away from the meeting house when it was already 10 minutes into sacrament meeting. We had to finally admit defeat and had a Sunday brunch at another French cafe. I did get to see my possible doppelganger though! It took coming to Japan to find her.

We got back to the hotel and realized that we needed to get our laundry done and took another series of public transportation hopping to find a laundry mat.

Toting the laundry bag around Kyoto.

The machines here are a washer and dryer in one!

Laundry time was actually really relaxing after running around all morning and we kind of reveled in the feeling of a regular day in the life of a Kyoto-ite. I also found some gachapon jello turtle toys that I was geekily excited about. John was so disappointed in me. He didn't realize that I had that latent in my personality (hehe!).

There's something so satisfying for me about taking out clean, hot laundry. I always gather it up in my arms and smell it! Ah! We dropped our clean clothes off at the hotel and then left for Arashiyama. Once there we walked through the bamboo forest and stopped at the Tenryu-ji Temple. We took some video here that we plan on making into something super awesome (ridiculous). A lot of people had cute little dogs that they walked around the pathways of bamboo and there was even the sweetest cat strolling around on a leash!

I was trying to imitate the tourism posters that were all over the subway stations.

Hydrangea everywhere!

John is trying to squat like the frog in the background.

The bamboo forest is a favorite of one the owners of John's company so he was sure to get a picture for him there showing his BambooHR pride.

This was the terrible night we made one of the worst decisions of our trip, which was to eat at McDonald's! Argh! We were both starving and exhausted after walking around all day and ate at the first place we saw after getting off the train. And then we walked through Pontocho which is lined with tons of delicious Japanese restaurants. Uber fail!

Contemplating one of the many menus in Pontocho. There were also places you could eat out over the river.

We also walked through Gion which is the main Geisha district. It was hard to tell at night who was a real geisha and who was just a dressed up Japanese girl. They have stores where you can pay to get dressed up to look like a geisha, so it can throw the untrained of us off.